[Sca-cooks] Re: European Colonialism and Brit Bashing

[Daniel Phelps]

Was written:

> I didn't mean to imply that he was "just a Brit"....he was all that you
> state, and was, in truth somewhat a maverick in his own culture.  I
> actually meant to impugn the Colonial troops and the missionary types
> who went into not only India, but other countries and systematically
> destroyed anything that they considered immoral.
>
It is PC these days to thump British colonialism.  Such did not happen in a
vaccum, if not British it would have been Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese,
French, German, or heaven help the locals, Belgian or even Russian.
Consider the results.... it is arguable that those former British colonies
which have maintained thier native populations have generally faired better
that those of their mainland European colonial rivals.  Africa is in the god
awful mess it is in no small part do to non British European colonialism
being a lot less enlightened than that of the British not they were saints
by any stretch.  Say what you want about the Brits, read Byron Fairwell's
"Queen Vicky's Little Wars" if you want but read the history of the Belgian
Congo and shudder.  Regards the Russians, read the little know history of
their explotation of the native populations of coastal Alaska.

The Brits at least introduced the concepts of sanitation, religious
tolerance and the rule of law into thier colonies.  In later years they
suppressed the slave trade, a pernicious practice that sadly still exists in
one guise or another in Africa, parts of the middle east and Asia to this
day.  Regards India would you really want to reintroduce the caste system
and human sacrifice in its various forms i.e. suttee, the thuggee cult etc.
etc.?  I think not.

Least you think me a Anglophile colonial apologist think again.  One of my
beloved ancestors was a native American out of Canada, the wife of a fur
trapper. As a side note; I've worked for Brits and bigger bunch of lying,
thieving, duplicitous incompetents then those I worked for I've never met.
They went bust because of it... perhaps just like the European colonial
empires did?

Hmmm... perhaps it's time to return to talk of food?

Daniel